8'3" x 9'8" Mahi Tabriz Design Rug | Black Fish Herati Field | Wool and Silk, Never Used

This is one of the finest renditions of the Mahi Tabriz layout we carry in a room size, hand-knotted in India in wool with silk highlights over a cotton foundation. At 8'3" x 9'8" it lands squarely in the most useful of the 8x10 area rugs, big enough to anchor a full seating group yet still easy to place. The weave is tight and flat, the pile is low and evenly clipped, and the silk catches light only where the drawing needs it, along medallion outlines and border vines. It has never been on a floor: the fringe is untouched, the selvages are crisp, and the back shows clean, regular knotting with no repair or restoration. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is genuine hand-knotted work.

Design and Motifs

The design is Mahi, the fish pattern, one of the most demanding all-over layouts in the Oriental rug repertoire. A diamond lattice runs edge to edge, and inside each compartment sits a small rosette flanked by 4 slender lanceolate leaves, the curved leaves that give the pattern its fish name. A large scalloped medallion floats at center, drawn in a warm brown cartouche with an 8 petal rosette core, framed first by an ivory herati ring and then by the black field itself. Anchor palmettes extend above and below the medallion, and matching quarter medallions fill the 4 corners of the inner field. The main border carries big turtle palmettes and curling acanthus leaves on black, set between guard bands of stylized flowering stems. The lattice never breaks or wanders across the whole 9'8" length, which is the real test of this pattern and of the cartoon it was woven from.

A Black Field Framed in Camel, Rust and Olive

The medallion field and the main border are deep black, and everything else is built around that. Outside the medallion the ground shifts to a soft camel brown, so the rug reads light at the perimeter and dark at the center, an unusual reversal that makes the medallion sit forward in the room. Within the lattice the small flowers are picked out in rust, brick red, olive green, muted slate blue and chalk ivory, all in very small increments, which is why the field reads as one warm tonal mass from standing height and only breaks into color up close. The guard border is a pale grey-green, the coolest note in the rug and the thing that keeps the black from going heavy. The medallion core blends tobacco brown, sage and ivory with small red centers. Fringe and selvage finish in natural ivory and black. Under lamplight the silk passes brighten the outlines; in daylight the whole palette settles into brown, black and rust.

Made in India in the Tabriz Mahi Tradition

India is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted rugs are being made today, and this piece is a clear example of why. The Mahi layout comes out of the Tabriz workshop tradition, and reproducing it honestly takes a high knot count, a disciplined cartoon and weavers who can hold a lattice square for more than 9 feet. The workshop that wove this one used a fine loom quality, good highland wool with silk worked into the pattern lines, and a cotton foundation that keeps the rug flat and square, as the back photograph shows. The woven label confirms 100% hand-knotted construction made in India, and the drawing on the reverse is almost as legible as the face, which is the quickest reliable sign of a dense, well-packed weave. Low pile and a tight back also mean it takes traffic well under a dining table or a coffee table without crushing.